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Brooklyn Pol Backs Down from Petition Challenge

State Senator Marty Golden won’t challenge the petition-signatures his Democratic challenger amassed to get onto the ballot after all. Earlier this week, challenges had been filed by Bridget Riley, a registered Democrat from Bay Ridge whose father happens to be the campaign-manager for one of the Republican candidates running to unseat Mike McMahon. (The world of Bay Ridge-Staten Island Republican politics is incestuous!) It is widely believed Riley did so at the behest of the Golden campaign.

But (first thing this morning) Atlas Shrugged in Brooklyn reported that Riley has decided not to file such challenges after all. “[The Golden campaign] didn’t like all the attention this story got them,” one source, who asked not to be identified, told the blog.

Of course, it’s common in politics for incumbents to challenge their opponents’ signatures, though it smacks of the underhanded. “We live in a democracy,” Mike DiSanto, Golden’s challenger, said, “and do not crown kings in America.”

But Golden has some reason for concern: this will be his first challenger since 2002, and the Brooklyn Eaglepoints out a surprising statistic: Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 43,000 in Golden’s district. (And Independents constitute a few thousand less than that margin.) Imagine if voters decide to vote strictly party line this year?